


Divine Favor

by illegible



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Done for a prompt and a writing challenge, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, NSFW
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-16 16:31:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13057836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/illegible/pseuds/illegible
Summary: In the Grand Cathedral, the Dalish Inquisitor comes to meet Divine Victoria.





	Divine Favor

Lady Cassandra Allegra Portia Calogera Filomena Pentaghast, more commonly known now as the Divine Victoria, sits upon her Sunburst Throne in Val Royeaux. She won this through war and bloodshed, something which clerics read across every line of her body. Muscled shoulders, confident stride, a refusal to waste energy on gestures as she speaks. She once worried privately about earning their confidence, about appearing less dangerous than she is. In the end, as a concession to honesty and comfort, she decided to forsake the traditional robes for armor instead. She gleams now, caught golden in kaleidoscopic light from Andraste’s immolation. Red, orange, and yellow cast through stained windows in the Grand Cathedral, igniting her crown like a halo.

Thedas chose a warrior to lead them. Not a spy, not a politician, not a mage. If she is to abide by that decision they can too.

Inquisitor Lavellan kneels before her, the path he walks illuminated by bowls of fire on either side. A man she loved many years ago, a man who sacrificed himself to a title. He’d become more distant as his organization grew, sharing less and less of himself even as they laid more at his feet. Of course he would smile, kiss her cheek. Find her bed. The Inquisitor listened as Cassandra recounted memories of Anthony, of romance novels she’d loved despite herself, of the strange and brutal Nevarra she was still discovering. He would answer these admissions thoughtfully and kindly, as he answered everyone.

Cassandra did not ask him about his Creators, his clan, his fears. Not after Haven. And once Cassandra expressed her own disappointment, Lavellan understood to avoid those subjects. He never did address the scorn she felt for his people. Silence crept in gradually with dark circles, the tension along his spine, how he turned from her at night.

Cassandra is still waiting for the same weariness to catch her, to find some source of kinship again. But Leliana is here, and Mother Giselle is here, and the Maker is here. Her faith has been kindled while his rests in ashes.

They didn’t so much end it as allow it to end. A promise to write if nothing else. Staring toward the empty future with her as Divine and him as Herald of Andraste—a figurative title only.

He’d looked so exhausted, then. They tried to make love once more, to give them both something to remember.

But Lavellan had asked her gently, with a kiss, to stop. He hadn’t been able to meet her gaze.

And Cassandra has long since regretted lacking the courage to ask why.

There is a false left hand attached to his arm. Lacquered, a sharp contrast to the warmth of his skin but not to those tattoos. Slave markings (she knows now) adopted in ignorance by his orphaned race. She doesn’t know what significance they were meant to hold and it no longer seems fair to ask.

Short, black hair—untidy as ever. Silk and dragonbone armor. A narrow jaw, full lips, broad nose, wide eyes—still avoiding her.

It isn’t supposed to be like this. _He_ isn’t supposed to be like this.

“You summoned me, Most Holy.”

This is not a question.

The Templars guard her as they always do, stone-still. “Leave us,” she tells them. There is no uncertainty when they obey.

Their sword-born Divine can handle this.

Victoria rises. “Mahanon,” she says, and from the way he stills it must have been a long time since anyone used his given name. “My friend… you have given too much of yourself.” Her gloved hand finds his cheek, his chin, turns him heavenward. Toward her. “You don’t have to stand on ceremony now.”

He remains where he is, but seems resigned to following her direction. She knows the scar tracing her chin will not fade past its current state. Lavellan has collected his own too, lining his throat where a horror of red-lyrium once ripped him open. “Thank you, Cassandra. I’ll keep that in mind,” he says. It shouldn’t sound as light as he makes it. “What would you have of me?”

She kneels to match him, and is rewarded with the lifting of his brows. “Your confidence,” she confesses gently, and before she can think better of it traces her thumb over the Dalish symbols. “I’ve missed you.”

An exhale, so faint Cassandra almost misses it. “If you only ask me,” he murmurs, “I’ll tell you anything.”

It would be a risk to release him now. He might take it the wrong way. So with her free hand she awkwardly unfastens the ties holding her hemet in place, grimaces as she tugs it loose.

Lavellan smiles, but offers no help. “You _can_ use both hands, you know,” he says. “I won't be offended. It takes practice.” Of course, he leans into her touch regardless.

The helmet is off. Her hair is knotted and misshapen and ridiculous. Cassandra snorts, half exasperation and half relief, then does what she’d meant to do. Their foreheads touch.

He worked so hard to earn her affection. When Lavellan learned she wanted candles, flowers, even _poetry_ , he did his best to make her feel loved. To reflect back the beauty he saw. It was sweet gesture, an innocent gesture. If he hadn’t been the Herald he might have courted her the same way. Maybe then she would have known him properly.

They shared only moments of recognition. Stories about rabbits, pranks, and drinking competitions. Things she took for granted. Fragments of someone with no past that mattered.

“What will it take,” asks Cassandra, “to see you happy again? After everything you’ve given…”

His eyes meet hers. “Me?” he asks, “I… I don’t know.” He stops himself. Closes his eyes. She waits, then cautiously shifts to rub his neck, his shoulder instead.

“I’ve missed you, too,” he admits quietly. “I wish… sometimes I wish we could be free of all of this. That it didn’t matter. That we could be ordinary people.”

Her fingers find the Inquisition’s crest on his breastplate. For all the good it’s done, in that moment it seems like nothing so much as another scar. Twisted, senseless.

She finds the buckles of his armor and, as if in a dream, begins to undo them.

“Cassandra,” he murmurs, “you can’t. Not here, not as Divine—“

“I can,” she says firmly, “and I will. If you’ll allow it.”

“Why?” he asks, a little louder this time. He glances to the door. Lower, he continues, “I don’t want you to do anything you’ll regret.”

She snorts. “You sound like a Chantry Mother.” A section slides loose, and when she helps pull him out of the aketon it is with more practiced, confident gestures. He opens his mouth to voice another concern, and she kisses him there.

It’s been far too long. He tastes clean, like his preferred tea. At first Lavellan stiffens under her touch, but as she eases into his mouth something inside him seems to loosen. His shoulders fall, his good hand finds the back of her head. Makes an even bigger mess as he weaves through her hair. She traces his tongue, his teeth, the roof of his mouth. The artificial limb bumps her hip, wood on metal he cannot grip the way he used to, and a groan of frustration crawls up her throat.

“Get me out of this thing.”

He hesitates, breaking the kiss to examine her once more. He doesn’t need to ask again.

She sighs and begins unfastening herself. “I know you are not Andrastrian,” says Cassandra, “but I believe The Maker is bigger than either of us. Bigger than this place, than my position.” With a clatter she stands exposed. Lavellan stares. If her heart beats faster and the blood finds her face, the Divine’s expression does not reflect it. She only begins on the pauldrons, which will be followed by gauntlets. “We are merely ourselves, mortal and mundane. And… I do love you, Mahanon.” She can’t bear to look at him now. “So imagine this room is only a room, that we are only a man and woman no different from the rest.”

“Cassandra,” he breathes, “you don’t have to do this.”

Her upper half liberated, she finds him again. He glances away as she looks up, and it makes her smile to see the tips of his ears turning pink. Delicately, she takes the Inquisitor’s jaw once more and directs him back to her. “I know,” she murmurs. “But I want to. If you’re willing.”

The force of his response catches her off-guard.

He surges into her, rough and careless, teeth scraping her bottom lip while his fingers close over her left cuisse. Find the edge, search blindly for something to release. Cassandra grunts, pushed backwards towards the throne.

_No._

She twists, and the sound that emerges is so harsh she startles herself, finding the Inquisitor’s throat. Kisses him there, sucking hard while her hands latch to his hips. Drag him in. He gasps, she turns and shoves hard.

An elf, a non-believer, a _man_ finds himself pressed back into the seat of the White Divine. Between them they shed what remains of their armor and she makes it her mission to mark him, to give him something new to replace what was taken. His fingertips skirt her navel, quest lower. Warm, firm, urgent.

Cassandra Pentaghast knows full well what she is. Once there were moments when she stole the breath from his lungs, when she effortlessly tore his control away. These are the memories she wields now.

Her tongue glides over him, makes its way from the stuttering windpipe to his collarbone. He will have her in the blood she raises under his skin, she whispers “This is something I want for you,” and knots his hand in hers, traps it against the carved eye of the Chantry that has become a familiar sensation when she sits. Always pushing into the back of her skull, a reminder she surrenders to him now. Cassandra’s other hand, her right hand, quests across Lavellan’s lower stomach, a trail of hair, just beside the length of him . She circles, rubbing beneath and between where his thigh meets his groin, driving deeper. Still, she does not touch him directly. Not yet.

His breathing is fast, she hears him say “Cassandra,” and smiles into his chest. Kisses his nipple, maps his abdomen with her lips. Closes her grip and begins to stroke. A strangled noise escapes him then, the artificial limb bumping lifeless against her back while the remaining one tears from her grip. Finds her opposite shoulder and contracts there, almost clawing before he carefully, deliberately reigns himself in.

It occurs to her that he’s been alone for a very long time. He’s hardening under her thumb by the time she decides to move in, kissing the base. Lingers there.

 _“Fuck me,”_ says the Inquisitor. “Fuck me, or so help me…”

She looks up, grinning with her teeth. His face is very red, his eyes unfocused. “Or you’ll what, Mahanon?” To punctuate the point, she finds his inner thigh and begins to suck there instead.

He moans loudly, his hold on her tightening. “Don’t torture me,” he says, “please.” Divine Victoria might not be known for her mercy, but she does possess it.

“Don’t ask,” is her only answer.

He’s returned to her hair, twisting enough to sting but no more. “Your mouth,” he demands, only to gasp when she obeys.

It’s a powerful feeling.

Her lips circle him as she reminds herself of the sensation, the familiar paths. He meets the roof of her mouth and she draws him in, back and forth while her tongue glides to either side, underneath. What remains she takes into her hands, cupping him, letting nothing go untouched.

“C…C…”

She wonders if he is trying to hold back her name or his Creators. It occurs to her that especially here, especially like this, she wishes he would allow himself either.

Cassandra keeps him there for some time, listening as his breathing grows more erratic, as the strangled sounds he struggles to hide escape anyway. It occurs to her that Lavellan has always been a little like this, offering glimpses of himself but tucking away what has the power to truly move him.

She doesn’t let him finish that way but pulls back. He shudders, looking at her through black, lidded eyes.

_”…Cassandra…”_

She wipes her mouth on her arm before getting up. Leans in, taking his face in both hands.

“Come with me,” says Cassandra. “I want to see.”

So they kneel to one another on the floor, flanked by flames that coil and slither through the air. The Divine is gone and in her place rests an ordinary woman, contained somewhere no better or worse than anyplace else. The man who faces her is incomplete, so she finds his lips again with the promise that for a time he can be more than he is now.

He kisses her jaw, her shoulder. Her collarbone as he enters, and she feels his teeth graze her briefly before pulling back. This time she gasps, but manages to rub his ankle with her shin before he pushes further. She folds herself in around him, legs closing forcing more contact. One of her hands finds his back, leads him in can feel him shaking every breath ragged he drives deeper she moans guides his hips he has his eyes shut she nips his nose Mahanon laughs, startled into seeing her, and she smiles unrepentant.

He's beautiful when he's playful. She steels herself and constricts tighter, tight enough to make him cry out as he rocks his hips, finds the space that moves him moves her shudders and eventually, eventually, allows himself to finish.

He is dizzy-slick pulling out and she can’t regret failing to match him, but Lavellan puts a wobbling arm over her knee and lowers himself.

“You… you don’t…” she begins, but he shakes his head.

“Yours,” he says simply, and although he is clumsy his fingers prove hot enough, slick enough, persistent enough, that in time she ends as well.

Neither of them speaks for some time afterward. It is very warm. Being in his arms again is a relief.

“Will the templars come back?” he whispers. She brushes his hair from his forehead, is tempted to explore the branches of his _vallaslin_. After some hesitation, she does.

“No,” she answers simply, “not for an hour or so.”

He nods, purses his lips. Waits. Then, abruptly, he tells her, “Don’t be sorry.” She blinks, caught off-guard. “Cassandra… here, like this, I don’t—“

She laughs this time, and to her surprise there is no irony in it. “Do I seem sorry to you? It's done.” She kisses him then, deeply, holding him until she feels her lungs begin to burn until his pulse under her fingertips is hard and fast again. Only then does she release him. “The Maker has forgiven Divines for greater offenses than this. And you are a good man, Mahanon. No Maker or… or Creator, would condemn you after everything you’ve done.”

He has very little in reply to that, but there is a softness in his gaze she’d almost forgotten. Slowly, he allows his eyes to close once more.

“Thank you,” he murmurs.

Cassandra’s expression has nothing holy about it, but it's human. Maybe that is enough.

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't tried writing a sex scene in a while, and pure technicalities I don't know if I wrote it well or not. If this isn't effective I'd actually appreciate crit please!


End file.
